Democratic victory may slow Brownback’s presidential endeavor

Washington  As Sam Brownback surveyed the presidential landscape over the past two years, he always insisted he had one major advantage: The country was becoming more conservative.

Maybe not. The results of Election 2006 cast doubt on the conservative Kansas senator's central assertion and further complicate his long-shot bid for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

Democrats ascended to power in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and some conservative icons lost their seats. Voters in Missouri approved an initiative protecting embryonic stem cell research.

Voters in South Dakota rejected a nearly total ban on abortion. Voters in Arizona defeated an initiative banning gay marriage, the first such proposed ban to lose.

"People are tired of the far right," said Sarah Chamberlain Resnick, the executive director of the Republican Main Street Partnership, a moderate group. "In order to win the presidential (election), we have to ... try to get away from the social issues and try to deal with the real issues facing the country."

Brownback and his aides dispute that notion, interpreting the election instead as a message to Republicans to "get back to basics," including a focus on social conservatism, said Brian Hart, Brownback's spokesman.

"This is still a center-right country, trending more and more conservative," Hart said, pointing out that gay marriage bans passed in seven other states on Tuesday and that many newly elected Democrats ran on conservative platforms.

Nothing about the election factored into Brownback's decision-making process about whether to run, which is nearly concluded, Hart said.

Should Brownback run, Hart said: "He will lead with social issues as well as fiscal issues. There's still a big need to talk about the renewal of our culture. That still resonates across the country."

While Brownback must overcome major financial and organizational obstacles if he's to mount a serious bid, there's still plenty of support for the social conservative agenda within the GOP.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, of Missouri, gave a speech Thursday on the future of conservatism that blamed the media for distorting Republicans' focus on values as pandering to "family groups."

Blunt called on Republicans to continue to "reinforce traditional values. And ... seize such opportunities not because they appear on the list of votes for one group or another, but because they are the right thing to do."

Brownback could benefit politically from the Republicans' loss of Congress and the losses social conservatives took on Election Day, said Tom McClusky of the Family Research Council, a leading conservative group that espouses traditional family values.

"If there is any bright spot in all this for conservatives or Republicans going into 2008, it's that you do better when you can rail against someone," McClusky said. "Sam Brownback will be the voice for conservatives on Capitol Hill, especially in the Senate."

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Comments

Brownback is preparing too much for the Rapture to be President. Hopefully that is enough to keep him out. Whatever you say about W, he doesn't think that he's performing service to God in an endeavor to bring about the End Days. (I don't think he's that forward thinking.)

I actually think that it may make him seem more bipartisan because Kansas is now a purple state (via LJ World front page) and while Brownback is very much an extremist he's from a state that is more bi partisan and he'll get to take credit for playing nice with the other side - which I think will help him. At least if it were me that's how I'd spin it.

Brownback has as much chance of being elected president as C.J. Giles has of leading the Hawks in scoring this year.

His presumption is merely indicative of the vanity that attends those who marry above their station. His marriage into the Stauffer clan - one of the state's most strident opponents of Jews and civil rights - may have given him enough fuel to shoot up the charts in Kansas, but his semi-ridiculous religious beliefs cannot and would not stand up against intense national media attention.

Brownback cannot win the presidential nomination by the republican party, because he went really soft on illegal immigration! voted the wrong way in about a dozen or more votes. he simply cannot win because of this.
we remember...we, the conservative base of the republican party.

now, let's repeal the 17th amendment so these boys and girls don't have to sell themselves to raise campaign money and return the selection of senators to the original constitutional method.